In England in the 1500s, in towns large and small, people flocked to arenas and sat in tiered bleachers to watch a leading amusement of the day: a bear chained to a post in the center of a dirt ring, fighting with dogs.

Henry the VIII was a fan of what was known as “bear baiting.” So was Elizabeth I. Shakespeare mentions one particular bear, Sackerson, in the comedy “Merry Wives of Windsor.”

As barbaric as the spectacle may seem to our modern American sensibilities, it was popular for centuries in much of Europe. (It remains so in isolated regions.) Then a fledgling movement to curb animal cruelty began protesting, public tastes shifted, and in 1835 bear baiting was outlawed.

Underwater cameras showed the crowd images of orcas from beneath the surface in SeaWorld's "Believe."
SeaWorld San Diego

Underwater cameras showed the crowd images of orcas from beneath the surface in SeaWorld's "Believe."

Is Shamu on a similar trajectory?

A state legislator from Santa Monica has introduced a bill to ban the killer whale shows at SeaWorld, arguing there is “no justification” for using the animals as entertainment. The bill was sparked by the recent film documentary “Blackfish,” a controversial look at the death of an orca trainer at SeaWorld in Orlando four years ago.

SeaWorld said the bill, considering its source, is biased. “The premise behind this proposed legislation is severely flawed on multiple levels, and its validity is highly questionable under the United States and California constitutions,” park officials said in a statement.

As animal issues often do, the bill is generating emotional debate, especially in San Diego, long a hotbed for agitation over everything from the treatment of elephants at the zoo to the presence of foie gras on restaurant menus.

Some see the Shamu shows as profit-driven entertainment; others see them as valuable education. What some see as captivity, others see as conservation. While some focus on animal rights, others think animal care is enough.

Underlying it all is a question floating in the air every time there’s a controversy about animals in circuses, animals in medical research, animals as food.

Where do we draw the line?

Moral standing?

Andy Lamey is a lecturer in the Philosophy Department at UC San Diego. One of his specialties is animal ethics, a relatively new field that has been widely influential with activist groups like PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

“After all the tumult of the ’60s,” Lamey said, “you have people saying, ‘Look, maybe society has historically been close-minded regarding the treatment of women and minorities. What if something similar is true of animals?’

“So people started looking into that and at first the reaction was, ‘Oh my god, this is kind of crazy,’ but I would say on an academic level the idea that animals warrant a higher moral status than we have historically given them — I don’t want to say everybody thinks that, but that’s a respected view now.”

That view still runs up against the traditional perspective of animals as subservient to man, to be used for our benefit, a perspective drawn from various passages in the Bible as well as the writings of important early thinkers like Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas and Descartes.